y'^^, 



LETTER 



TO 



THE PRESIDENT OF HARYARD COLLEGE. 



A MEMBER OF THE CORPORATION. 






jL^^^ 



LETTER 

r " 



PRESIDENT OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 






A MEMBER OF THE CORPORATION. 









I 






5 BOSTON: 

CHARLES C. LITTLE AND JAMES BROWN. 



1849. 



v£5 



CAMBRIDGE : 
PRINTED BY BOIXES AND HOUGHTOM. 



LETTER 



To Jaked Sparks, LL.D., 

President of Hakvaed College. 
Sir: 

As you have recently been appointed to that 
distinguished and important office, which, during the 
whole history of Massachusetts, has been, not only one 
of the most honorable stations in the community, but 
one of those which it has always been most difficult to 
fill, the present moment seems a suitable one to address 
you on the nature of the position, and the present cir- 
cumstances of the college. It is, no doubt, in conse- 
quence of the difficulty of finding a well-qualified 
incumbent, in consequence of the multiplied attain- 
ments, and the various and seemingly inconsistent 
powers which are requisite to perform the accumulated 
duties of the office, that it is esteemed so honorable to 
any man to attain it; and you must allow me to con- 
gratulate you that your merits have been so recognized 
by the appointing powers, and so cordially acknow- 
ledged by the public generally, as to secure to you this 
position, with siich universal approbation. The talents 
of the wisest man, and the virtues of the best, find an 
ample field for exercise and cultivation in the office 
of President of Harvard College; and while he who 



faithfully and discreetly performs its duties must be 
improving himself by laborious effort, he has the 
reward of knowing that he is contributing to the 
improvement of others, of many generations, by the 
good influence he exerts, by the beneficial changes he 
may introduce, and most of all, by the example he sets 
of unwearied exertion and generous self-sacrifice. 

The President is the centre around which revolves 
the whole complicated machinery of the college, and 
he must direct his eye, in rapid succession, upon the 
system of instruction and discipline of undergrad- 
uates, — upon the management of the more advanced 
schools connected with the earlier institution, — upon 
the manner in which the various parts, under the direc- 
tion of many different officers, are respectively con- 
ducted, — upon the general principles which are to 
regulate the whole, and bind all together in one 
system, — upon the appointments which are so often 
to be made, the selection of the best men that can be 
obtained, for a great variety of places, — upon the 
management of the external affairs of the college, its 
finances and resources, and its intercourse with the 
parents of the pupils, — upon its connection with the 
Commonwealth through the Corporation and Board of 
Overseers, — and last, not least, upon its relations to its 
numerous friends, alumni and patrons, who, without 
direct power over its action, exercise a magnetic 
influence upon its destiny, not the less efficient because 
it is invisible, and whose real and affectionate interest 
in the literary mother of so many illustrious sons, may 
be greatly augmented or diminished, both in activity 
and intensity, by the discretion or indiscretion, the 



effort or the neglect of the President. For the best 
discharge of these duties it is sufficiently evident that 
he must bring to the place a large amount of scholar- 
ship, of thorough and extensive learning, a practical 
acquaintance with human nature, as it shows itself 
under every variety of age, development, and condi- 
tion, a knowledge of what is somewhat technically 
called business, and an extensive familiarity with liter- 
ary and scientific men and institutions ; he must possess 
a sympathizing heart, that he may acquire the benefi- 
cent influence which that alone can give, and, at the 
same time, firmness, that he may administer a fatherly 
discipline, or resist projects of useless change ; sagacity 
to discern motives, and charity to judge them ; enter- 
prise, to stimulate to improvement, and discretion, to 
prevent a waste of efforts ; and to all these high qual- 
ities he must add the personal virtues of integrity, 
purity, and piety, for without these, he will most 
assuredly fail, though in all other requisites he were 
the foremost man of all the age. 

As one of the alumni of Harvard, I rejoice most 
sincerely that, possessing, as you do, so many of the 
most important requisites for the place, you have been 
selected for it, and have devoted yourself to its high 
duties, and its noble incitements. But you are not to 
imagine that all the difficulties of the post have been 
pointed out in the preceding sentences. The qualities 
which have been enumerated are those which will be 
called forth in the practice of the daily routine of 
duties, under even the most favorable circumstances ; 
while their very highest efforts will be necessary, to 
meet the occasional trials of controversy, and the more 



6 



constant effects of the ignorance and prejudice which 
pervade large classes of the community, in respect to 
the organization, the objects, and the resources of the 
college, and its effects upon society. It is perfectly 
astonishing to one who considers the matter, without 
going very deeply into the natural history of fault- 
finding, how long and how constantly the college, 
which was founded for great ends by our progenitors, 
and has always been an object, not merely of generos- 
ity, but of affection and pride, in the secret heart of 
the people, has yet been the visible subject of little but 
reproach and blame from every quarter. At one time 
it is accused of heresy, at another of treason; its 
organization is deemed the worst possible, its instruc- 
tion is behind the demands of the age ; sometimes too 
much, sometimes too little is taught ; now, attention to 
purely collegiate studies, Latin, Greek, and metaphys- 
ics, supersedes the more important practical pursuits of 
the day ; and now, the ancient classics, the fountains 
and sources of all real knowledge, are neglected for 
science falsely so called ; and the resources of the col- 
lege are wasted upon things that have nothing to do 
with education. But perhaps the most fruitful cause 
of complaint, is the discipline of the institution, which 
can, by no possibility, be made to conform to the hetero- 
geneous opinions that are promulgated on every side. 
One man complains that there is no discipline at all, 
and that his son has been ruined by the neglect of the 
of&cers; another declares it is shamefully severe, and 
that the prospects of his son have been blighted by an 
extreme punishment for a venial offence. 

These conflicting opinions, which are obviously not 



so much the reflection of the real faults of the college, 
as the results of individual habits of thinking and 
feelingj are constantly poured into the ear of the Pres- 
ident ; and it is no small part of his business to justify 
the ways of the college to private complainants of all 
these various kinds. They are also frequently expressed 
in the most public manner, by all sorts of persons, the 
ignorant and the well-informedj those who are not 
acquainted with the history of the institution, and those 
who are ; — sometimes by those who hold office under 
its organization, and sometimes by those who have had 
no connection with it. 

I do not address you, however, to overwhelm you by 
the contemplation of the difficulties and trials which 
necessarily belong to the office of President, but to do 
something, if I can, to relieve you from any needless 
apprehension of reproach arising from accusations of the 
college, whether new or old, which however plausible 
they may appear at first view, are, in reality, unfounded 
and unjust. 

The latest exhibition of this prevalent spirit is con- 
tained in the last number of the North American 
Eeview ; in an article, the writer of which goes pretty 
deeply into the subject, shows a considerable acquaint- 
ance with the wrong side of the carpet, but cannot 
make out the figures which appear on the other, and 
who has apparently studied the history of the college 
to a considerable extent, not with any purpose of char- 
itably hiding its faults, but with what he would con- 
sider, perhaps, as the still more charitable design of 
probing every wound, without much regard to the 
immediate sufferings of the patient. Before using the 



8 



knife, it will be well to ascertain if the supposed injuries 
are any thing more than imaginary discolorations of 
the surface, which cannot be even discerned in the 
clear light of truth and candor. 

I believe that much of misapprehension, as to the 
proper character of the institution, has arisen from the 
names that have been given to it ; and though there 
has been a good deal of discussion whether it should 
be called College or University, and the reviewer takes 
side strongly in favor of the former, yet it does not 
seem to have occurred to the parties, that neither term 
fitly describes the institution which was founded by 
" the Court " of Massachusetts, and the Rev. John Har- 
vard, if the meaning be understood to be that attached 
to the words in Europe. In England, a college is usu- 
ally a rich establishment, founded very much like the 
still more ancient monasteries, upon independent re- 
sources sufficient to erect and maintain all the neces- 
sary buildings, chapel, cloisters, library, refectory, &c., 
to furnish the support and compensation of all the 
officers, and instructors, and commonly, also, of a large 
portion, if not of the whole of the students. Some- 
times, too, fellowships, as they are called, are provided 
for the entire support of graduates who intend to 
devote themselves, in celibacy, to the pursuit of par- 
ticular studies. If this be compared with our estab- 
lishment, there will be found a difference, not merely 
in degree, of wealth, or learning, or talent, but in kind, 
which cannot be reconciled till sufficient funds are pro- 
vided for the erection and maintenance of all necessary 
buildings and apparatus, the support of all officers, and 
of a portion, at least, of the students. The important 



9 

bearing of this difference upon the course of instruc- 
tion and discipline which is possible in the one institu- 
tion and impossible in the other, will not be overlooked 
by any one who gives the slightest attention to the 
subject; and doubtless much of the complaining of the 
want of discipline and steadiness of system of instruc- 
tion at our Cambridge arises from its having been 
always called "a college/' which is supposed to be 
capable of carrying on both instruction and discipline, 
with a firm and independent hand. This has never 
been possible with us, because the whole establishment 
was originally, and four-fifths of it continue still to be 
absolutely dependent upon the students who frequent 
it. Those who pay for an article are apt to have some 
influence upon those who sell it, in all countries, but 
far more in this than in any other. 

On the continent of Europe, " a college " approaches 
nearer in signification to what we mean by a high 
school, than to the English meaning of the word ; 
while by a derivative use in the German universities, 
collegium means a private course of lectures, for w^hich 
a fee is paid to the professor who gives them. Of 
course, little resemblance can be traced between these 
uses of the term and ours. Still smaller is the resem- 
blance between the European meaning of the word 
university, and our application of it. In England, a 
university is a collection of colleges, associated together 
by the heads of each, for certain purposes. On the 
continent, it includes a considerable variety of institu- 
tions for education, but is most generally understood as 
the proper title of the great German schools for profes- 
sional and advanced instruction of all kinds, where 



10 



nothing is furnislied to the student but courses of lec- 
tures ; where the professors are maintained in part by 
government, who alone appoints them, and in part by 
fees ; where the student may attend what lectures he 
pleases, and may often select his instructor from among 
a half dozen on the same subject, according to the 
price, and the estimate he puts upon the respective 
value of each course ; and where the discipline is little 
else than that of the city or town police. 

It is manifest that our Harvard has so little resem- 
blance to either kind of institution, as known in Europe, 
that it is not of the smallest consequence whether it 
is called one, or the other, or either indiscriminately, 
notwithstanding the unfortunate allusion of the re- 
viewer to the alias of a criminal in a court of justice. 
It is certain that Harvard CoUege, or the University at 
Cambridge has been, through all its past history, con- 
tinues to' be at the present moment, and is likely to 
be forever hereafter, a peculiar institution, — a New 
England institution, honorably unlike any of those 
after which it has been named, and distinguished more 
for its struggles to live and labor, than for the abun- 
dance of its resources; for its constant endeavor to 
adapt itself to the wants of the community in which 
it exists, than for its power over systems of education, 
or systems of discipline ; for its practical influence upon 
the leading minds of the country, than for the splen- 
dor of its appointments, or the dignity of its offices. 
John Harvard is said to have founded a college ; but 
what a difference between the extent of the edifice of 
which he laid the second stone, and those " twins of 
learning " established by a man of unmeasured wealth. 



11 

power, and worldly ambition, a century before ! The 
difference between the palace of Hampton Court, the 
Cardinal's own residence, and Harvard's humble dwell- 
ing at Charlestown, is not more striking, nor more 
instructive. 

Harvard College, like most other American colleges, 
has always been, and is still, poor in physical resources. 
What ! I hear some one exclaim, with an abundance of 
New England notions of thrift and wealth in his head, 
Harvard College poor ! when it has been receiving such 
immense donations from the government of the state, 
and from rich individuals, for two hundred years and 
more ; when it is by far the richest college in the coun- 
try, and actually possesses more than ^750,000, 
besides all the college grounds, and buildings, and 
books ! Yes, I say again, — and I wish to impress the 
true meaning of the word, and the true causes of the 
fact, if I can, upon the mind of every reader, — Har- 
vard College is very poor ; and is compelled to be a 
beggar for those necessaries of life, which, if it had 
been rich, would have been furnished long ago. I will 
begin my explanation of the relative terms, poor col- 
lege, and rich college, by stating what is necessary to 
constitute the latter, in my judgment. 

A rich college is one which has funds, well and per- 
manently invested, sufficient to erect upon its own 
ground, and keep in repair, all desirable buildings, 
including chapel, library, lecture-rooms, dwellings for 
the officers and students, dining-halls, cabinet-rooms, 
and all other proper structures whatsoever ; to support 
and compensate the instructors, and all officers from 
the highest to the lowest; to support and instruct all 



12 

the students ; to furnisli all necessary apparatus of 
instruments, collections and books ; and finally to be 
able to procure some appropriate luxuries, such as 
costly and showy books, coins, medals, &c., and such 
suitable pictures, sculpture, and exterior architectural 
decorations, as may add to the charm of collegiate life, 
and to the affection with which a generous mother 
should and must inspire a generous child. 

Magnificent as all this may sound, it is no more than 
is actually accomplished elsewhere ; it is not more than 
is effected at West Point ; it is no more than was de- 
signed by Stephen Girard for his college ; and it is no 
more than can be done at any moment for Harvard 
College, whenever the legislature, or a few scores of 
wealthy individuals, shall will it. Compare the condi- 
tion of an institution like the one described, with that 
of our college, and I think that pauperism and beggary 
will be acknowledged to be not inappropriate words for 
its state. About one half of the salaries of the pro- 
fessors in the academic department are paid for by 
independent funds, and the other half, together with 
the compensation of all the other officers of the same 
department, the president, tutors, librarians, proctors, 
and of all of the servants, janitors, sAveepers, and as 
many as there be, are left unprovided for ; the build- 
ings have been begged, one by one, of the legislature, 
and no funds exist wherewith to repair them ; books 
are wanted for the library, but no funds, or next to 
none, exist to buy them ; collections are wanted, but 
cannot be obtained ; instruments, but they are again 
the objects of solicitation. All these things must be 
charged upon the students, if procured, and the stu- 



IB 

dents cannot pay for them ; and consequently much 
that is really necessary in the college is wanting, and 
things are done, not as they should be, but as they can 
be ; and while the nurse is famishing for want of suffi- 
cient food, the nursling is compelled to pay for an inade- 
quate supply of his mother's milk. 

How does this correspond, it may be asked, with the 
praises which are lavished upon the benefactors of 
Harvard College, with the eulogies which are constantly 
passed upon the bounty even of our enterprising fore- 
fathers, and the generosity of our richer contempora- 
ries ? If they have been so liberal to the college for 
two hundred years and upwards, how can it be that 
the school is still so poor ? The explanation is easy. 
The state and individuals have, at all times, made 
donations, which, in respect to their means, were truly 
generous and noble, but which, considered in reference 
to their objects, were insufficient and scanty. The 
views of the public as to the liberality of donations, 
have naturally been more directed to the extent of the 
resources from which they were drawn, than to the 
magnitude of the object to which they were to be 
devoted ; and it must be remembered that what is great, 
when regarded from the one point, may be very dimin- 
utive when viewed from the other. It is a very liberal 
act, one deserving of all commendation, for a few indi- 
viduals to give ^20,000 for the increase of the library 
of the college ; but a fund of twenty times that 
amount, like that given to the city of New York, by Mr. 
Astor, is what is truly needed to meet the exigencies 
of the department ; to furnish the books that are con- 
stantly asked for in vain, to provide for their preserva- 



14 

tioiij to pay the necessary officers, and to erect and re- 
pair the building designed for them. Who can wonder, 
then, and who can reasonably find fault with the man- 
agers of the college, if, even after what are called, and 
justly called, most liberal donations, they still complain 
of poverty ? They are poor, and they will continue to 
be poor, until the public shall have so far enlarged their 
ideas of the nature and design of a college, as to sup- 
ply, in a permanent manner, all those wants, which are 
permanent in their nature ; and shall relieve the friends 
of the school from the necessity of begging, alike for 
new wants and old wants, for needs which are perpet- 
ually recurring, and for those which spring up with the 
new circumstances which rise so fast around us. 

It is quite natural and excusable in a person not 
educated at college himself, and not familiar with insti- 
tutions for collegiate and professional education, that 
there should be something more than wonder in his 
mind at the apparent inconsistency above alluded to. 
But it is a little different with one who is acquainted 
with the numerous and vast unsupplied wants of Har- 
vard College, and yet complains of her perpetual asking 
for aid. He who knows what such an institution 
should be, and what our college is, if he be a true 
friend of education, should join in these supplications, 
should support them with his sympathy and effort, and 
find no fault that is not thrust upon his notice by its 
enormity. Whatever is venial he should forgive, what 
is inexcusable, he should lament and palliate. The 
only chance for filling up the deficiencies which exist 
must be derived from the favor of the public ; and that 
favor is scarcely likely to be secured, if her professed 



15 

friends can see, or can point out, nothing but errors in 
her whole history, nothing but blunders in her present 
condition. 

There is quite a long catalogue of the supposed 
mistakes of successive ages contained in the article in 
question ; and I propose to examine them all, and 
ascertain whether the writer is justifiable in his accusa- 
tions, or whether he has committed an error as great as 
those which he charges upon others, in making promi^ 
nent ill-founded complaints. 

It is something new in the history of the misdeeds 
of the college, that it should be charged with receiving 
too much, or rather too many donations. In the uni- 
versal dearth of means, it was certainly natural, and, it 
would seem, not very blamable, that it should receive 
with thankfulness whatever either government, or 
liberally-disposed individuals might see fit to give, 
which would aid, directly or indirectly, in the progress 
of education. The college was not limited, in its origi- 
nal purpose, or its early practice, to the narrow sphere 
which the reviewer seems to think is the only one in 
which it should attempt to move. Preparatory educa- 
tion was not all that it was designed to give, nor all 
that it did give, from the earliest moment of its exist- 
ence. The training of pastors for the churches was 
part of its original object, and the labors of its early 
presidents were largely bestowed on this professional 
education ; and scarcely a donation was made to the 
coUege in which the preparation of youth for the min- 
istry of the Gospel is not alluded to, or directly men- 
tioned. The conversion of the Indians was one of the 
objects sought for in the devotion of so large a proper- 



16 

tion of the young men at Cambridge to the sacred pro- 
fession. It had always been an object deeply seated 
in the hearts of our fathers, stern and cold as they are 
thought to have been, and one greatly in favor with 
sympathizing friends of theirs in England. It was an 
enterprise generously patronized by the most enlight- 
ened, as well as humane men, at successive periods, 
who thought the college a proper recipient of their 
bounty, and weU able to look after its management. 
The Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign 
Parts, erected a building for the especial purpose of 
having the Indian youth educated at Cambridge, by 
the officers of the college. The Hon. Robert Boyle 
gave a considerable annuity for the sole purpose of 
employing two missionaries for the conversion of the 
Indians, the disbursing of which was entrusted to the 
college ; and finally the Rev. Daniel Williams gave a 
still larger annuity for the same purpose. Some frag- 
ments and gleanings of this latter gift are all that 
remain, the payment of the annuities having been 
discontinued at our Revolution ; and the reviewer 
can find nothing to say of this pleasant memo- 
rial of the real kindness of our fathers, this evi- 
dence how much their hearts, and the hearts of their 
wealthy friends " at home," had been touched by the 
saint-like labors of Eliot, and b}^ the just sentiment 
of a heavy debt due from the white man to the red 
man, except that " it is now a draft upon their [the 
Corporation's] time and care, it encumbers their treas- 
urer's books, and does not in any way promote the 
growth of liberal studies at Cambridge." He says he 
presumes "the Corporation would gladly resign this 



17 

trust fund to any person or institution who could 
legally take charge of it ; " and without doubt he 
would think it better if it had never been accepted, as 
it is the first of the instances he mentions in which 
money was bequeathed to the college "for certain 
purposes that had little fellowship with its original 
design." 

It appears that in this case the fellowship was close 
and intimate ; and not only so, but that the money was 
bequeathed for one of the noblest purposes, and from 
the noblest motives, which could actuate a just and 
generous heart. He who does what he can to dis- 
charge the debt of one race of men to another, he who 
shows the power of generous sentiments by action, and 
thus does something to counterbalance the heavy load 
of selfishness and injustice, the conviction of which 
ought to press upon the conscience of every American 
who has read the story of the Indians, is not a man 
whose gifts are to be set aside, in any age, as an 
incumbrance and a burden ; and what shame would 
have fallen upon our fathers, if they had so much as 
thought of declining to be the almoners of such a 
bounty ; and what expression of disapprobation would 
be too strong, if the Corporation should now give up 
the care of so precious a memorial of the character of 
our predecessors, because " it is a draft upon their time 
and care, and encumbers their Treasurer's books." Per- 
haps once in twenty or thirty years some new project 
is started with regard to the distribution of the in- 
come, which may require a few hours consideration; 
and it probably takes a half an hour in a twelvemonth 
for the Treasurer to collect and pay over the proceeds, 

3 



18 

and keep the account. When the last Indian shall 
have disappeared, and the appropriation of the fund to 
its original purpose shall have become impossible, the 
legislature will have the power and the right to say 
what shall be done with it ; and though it will be diffi- 
cult to point out any thing which has more fellowship 
with the original design of the college, yet no doubt 
something exceedingly useful and desirable may be 
effected by it, which shall ^^ promote the growth of 
liberal studies at Cambridge." 

Mrs. Winslow's donation, for the immediate benefit of 
the town of Tyngsborough, is another of those instances 
in AYhich the reviewer can see little fellowship with the 
original design of the college ; although it might, pos- 
sibly, have occurred to him that it Avas not altogether 
unbecoming in those who were engaged in providing 
for the preparatory education of the young, to assist in 
the still more elementary instruction of others, who 
might thus be led to enter their own school ; nor for 
those whose duty it is, and always has been, to send 
forth pastors and teachers, to feel an interest in the 
support of one of them who might go from their own 
halls. The reversion to the college, in case of a vio- 
lation of any of the conditions of the donation, is not 
so remote a contingency as to add nothing to the 
value of the college property. Such have been the 
changes in the state of things in the town, since this 
donation was made, that it has already been suggested 
by some of those most interested, that it would be 
better to suffer the money to revert to the college ; 
and it is certainly extremely probable that at no dis- 
tant day this will be done. Such a contingency not 



19 

only justified the Corporation at the time in accepting 
the trusty but would have been a strong ground of 
complaint if they had refused. If ^^ old Harvard is 
none the richer for these funds/' the refusal to accept 
the charge of them would have made her much 
poorer, — poorer in that sympathy which she needs 
herself, and which she should, therefore, show to 
others j — poorer in those right feelings which are the 
best wealth of an institution, as well as of an indi- 
vidual, professing to have a character at all; and 
poorer in that extension of views with which the guar- 
dians of a permanent institution ought always to reach 
forward to the future. 

These are admitted by the reviewer to be " extreme 
cases," and it may well be considered a fortunate, and 
even flattering, circumstance that so careful an inves- 
tigator could point out nothing worse than these, in 
the long and curious list of very miscellaneous legacies 
and donations which have been received by the college 
during its term of two hundred years of corporate life. 

But though these are the worst, they are far enough 
from being the only errors of management which have 
been exhibited in the history of the college, in the 
opinion of the reviewer. All the schools which in the 
course of time, and the progress of events, have been 
gathered around it, and placed under the general 
supervision of the same managers, with the aid of par- 
ticular officers devoted to each, are greatly injurious, in 
his judgment. He says Harvard College ^^ is now in a 
fair way of being smothered under a heap of other 
institutions, ivhich have as much to do ivith the original 
purpose for which it was founded as with cotton-spinning. 



20 

It is not that the respective objects of these institu- 
tions are mean, unworthy, or of little account. Far 
from it ; most of them are of that high and liberal 
character which challenges the admiration and support 
of every well-informed lover of his race, every well- 
wisher to the highest interests of mankind. But they 
absorb the time and energy of the governors of the 
college ; they give it a deceptive appearance of wealth, 
when in truth they only make it poorer ; they divert 
the attention and generosity of the community, which 
would otherwise be all turned towards the fostering of 
proper academic studies at Harvard ; they borrow its 
money; they multiply inordinately its occasions for 
appealing to public munificence, so that the college 
appears like a horse-leech, whose cry is constantly, 
* Give ! Grive ! ' they become formidable rivals to those 
exclusively intellectual pursuits, to that love of letters 
and sound scholarship, to that general and liberal cul- 
ture, which should be the peculiar aim of a life at col- 
lege ; and though often seemingly successful at the 
outset, they subsequently become in many cases a 
dead weight and an incumbrance, injuring the good 
name of the college, and lessening its means of useful- 
ness. Let them be confined to their proper place ; let 
each be established on its own independent footing ; 
let not Harvard College be expected to furnish all the 
machinery, all the management, all the funds, for the 
cultivation of every science, and for the promotion of 
every enterprise, be it of an intellectual, a philan- 
thropic, or an industrial character." 

This skilfully-constructed paragraph, which it almost 
takes away one's breath to read, substantially develops 



21 

the theory of the reviewer, respecting its true, and 
what he considers its original purpose -, and shows the 
faults he thinks to have been committed, as well by 
those who have endowed the college, as by those who 
have consented that it should be so endowed. Itg 
admissions are important, and its rhetorical embellish- 
ments are such, that in order not to be misled by them, 
one must have either remarkable coolness, or a little 
antagonistic warmth. If all the inferences of the 
reviewer were just, it does not seem that any mon- 
strous evil would have been produced ; but as the 
greater part of the whole statement is a mere dictum 
of the writer, it would seem that a general negation 
was a sufficient answer. To most of the assertions of 
seeming weight in those sentences, it would be per- 
fectly safe to say to the writer in reply, " you are mis- 
taken ', it is not so ; " — while others might be partly 
admitted, as containing a portion of truth, but no man- 
ner of harm, even if they were wholly true. But it 
is not by specific contradictions of particular assertions 
that the facts in the case can best be explained, and 
the reasons for the general course of the college can 
be exhibited. This must be effected by taking a little 
wider view than the reviewer has done, both of the 
original purpose of the college, and of those circum- 
stances out of which its present condition has gradually, 
honorably, and wisely been produced. 

The establishment of the college was proposed for 
the twofold purpose of keeping up an acquaintance 
in the children with all that knowledge which so many 
well-educated men brought with them from England, 
and of perpetuating a supply of learned ministers for 



' 22 

the pulpits of New England. The often-repeated 
declarations of the founders and early benefactors of 
the college prove this design so unequivocally, and it 
is so universally understood and admitted, that it is a 
cause of no small surprise to see so able a scholar as 
the reviewer insisting that " Harvard College was insti- 
tuted for the promotion of liberal studies, and for nearly 
two centuries it was exclusively (!) devoted to this 
end." The professional tendency and character of the 
earliest studies in the college is manifest from the 
records, imperfect as they are, of the prescribed course, 
in which the acquisition of Hebrew, translation from 
Hebrew into Greek, lectures on the Scriptures by the 
President, &c., are prominent ; while the result is shown 
by the fact that, for a long period, the proportion of 
the graduates who devoted themselves in after life to 
the ministry of the Gospel was not less than one-third 
of the whole number. It is scarcely probable that 
they received the whole of their theological education 
during the four j^ears of their collegiate life ; but it is 
certain that the foundation of it was carefully laid, and 
that it was intended to be laid, by '^ the Court " of 
teaching and ruling elders who made the first donation, 
by the Reverend John Harvard, who gave the first 
legacy to the infant seminary, and by the very numer- 
ous contributors of sums for the aid of those who were 
quaintly called '^ poor scholars," especially of those 
who devoted themselves to the ministry of the Gospel. 
So far from the fact is the assertion that for nearly 
two centuries Harvard College was exclusively devoted 
to the promotion of what may properly be called 
liberal studies, that it would be much nearer the truth 



23 

to call it an almost professional school at the outset, 
and that it has been more and more devoted to liberal 
studies, as it has advanced in years and discretion. 

The two mottoes of the college seal, though objec- 
tionable if considered as indicating the whole design 
of the institution, yet show distinctly and strongly the 
tendency of the age to give it a professional character. 
"In Christi Gloriam" was the first; and the other, 
which is now in use, is '' Christo et Ecclesiae." It is to 
be regretted that such strictly-professional mottoes 
should have been adopted, and retained so long ; but 
the inference from this single fact would be strong, 
that the college was not exclusively devoted to " that 
general and liberal culture," which the reviewer says, 
" should be the peculiar aim of a life at college." 

In less than a century from the establishment of the 
college, it was endowed with a theological professor- 
ship by a generous and truly liberal man, who belonged 
to the denomination of Baptists. This professorship 
has been a sore subject to the college, to its friends and 
its foes, from the hour it was first given till now. It 
has scarcely ever ceased to be the subject, or the occa- 
sion, of difficulty and complaint. But what was the 
objection to it which was made when IloUis proposed 
to found it ? Was it that it could not be well mingled 
with those liberal studies, those " littercE himaniores " to 
which the college had been thus far " exclusively devo- 
ted?" Was it that the college was "originally de- 
signed " for the cultivation of " classical learning, old- 
fashioned scholarship, literary pursuits, and the moral 
sciences," for the extension of which the reviewer 
thinks that " colleges and universities were instituted ? " 



24 

Not a whisper of all this. Our fathers did not so under- 
stand the " original purpose " of the college, and they 
would have received such a foundation with unbounded 
gratitude from a benefactor, who, as Dr. Colman ex- 
pressed it, " had been one in opinion and practice " with 
them. But the difficulty was, Hollis was a Baptist, 
and wished that a candidate might not be excluded 
from his chair merely because he was a Baptist. There 
was a horror of Baptists even when they made presents 
of professorships ; and Judge Sewall refused to take 
" any bribe to give his sentence in disparagement of 
infant baptism." There have been other contests about 
this professorship in after times, but never till now was 
it made matter of reproach to the college that it ac- 
cepted a donation for a professional purpose. A few 
years later the foundation of a professorship of mathe- 
matics was laid by the same generous spirit ; and it is 
an apt illustration of the course which was taken 
by the college, its patrons as well as its governors, that 
provision should be made first for the supply of the 
churches with able teachers, and afterwards for the 
cultivation of " those exclusively intellectual pursuits," 
which should be the peculiar aim of a life at college." 
Five years after the foundation of a professorship of 
mathematics, two donations were made to the college 
for the purpose of establishing a professorship of law ; 
and the corporation of that day, little imagining that 
<2 they were beginning to attend to things ^^ which had 
as much to do with the original purpose of the college as 
with cotton-spinning," accepted them ; and though one 
was lost early, the other continues to this day, and now 
forms a part of one of those institutions which " absorb 



25 

the time and energy of the governors of the college." 
Forty years later a thkd profession was introduced into 
the college, by a donation for the purpose of giving 
medical instruction, and our fathers, still blind to the 
future, thought they were accepting a real benefaction, 
and were grateful for it, and for the additions subse- 
quently made to it, by which it was rendered more 
available. 

All these donations, for the three subjects of pro- 
fessional, as distinguished from academical education, 
generous when considered in regard to the sources 
whence they emanated, were but small for the objects 
to be attained. They were insufficient for the main- 
tenance of a professor in either department, and though 
a professor of theology was immediately appointed, 
his salary was eked out by fees from the students, 
and by contributions from the legislature ; and it was 
long before any one was appointed to give either 
medical or legal instruction, to those in any manner 
connected with the college. 

Suppose, now, for a moment, if it be possible, that 
our ancestors had taken the view of things presented 
by the writer in the North American, and that they 
had said to HoUis, and Royall, and Hersey, successively, 
" We will not receive your donations, for though they 
are for objects of that high and liberal character which 
challenges the admiration and support of every well- 
informed lover of his race, and every well-wisher to the 
highest interests of mankind, yet they will absorb our 
time and energy, give the college a deceptive appear- 
ance of wealth, when in truth they will only make it 
poorer, divert the attention and generosity of the com- 



A 



26 

munity from fostering proper academic studies ; and 
become formidable rivals to exclusively intellectual 
pursuits, and that love of letters, and general and lib- 
eral culture, which should be the peculiar aim of a col- 
lege life. 'No, if you want professional schools, let 
each be established on its own independent footing ; let 
not Harvard College be expected to furnish all the 
machinery, all the management, and all the funds for 
the cultivation of every science, and the promotion of 
every enterprise." 

It is very difficult to carry one's imagination so far 
as to think of men having charge of an institution for 
education in this community, eager as it always has 
been to seize every, the smallest, opportunity for im- 
provement, pursuing such a course as this. It is 
impossible to believe, or to imagine, that such a course 
would have been sanctioned, or tolerated for a moment 
by the public. The members of the Corporation who 
should at any period have adopted it, would, probably, 
have been very speedily, unceremoniously, and certainly 
very justly, removed from seats they were incompetent 
to fiU. Yet it is precisely the course which, if he would 
be consistent, the reviewer must have recommended. 
If institutions for professional education ought not to 
be gathered around the college, still less ought profes- 
sional instruction to be given in the four short years 
which are devoted to the ^^litterce Immanioresr It 
would then, of course, interfere in a much greater 
degree with the proper preparatory studies of under- 
graduates ; and if our predecessors committed any 
oversight in the matter, it may have been that they 
did not discriminate with sufficient distinctness, when 



27 

and how this professional education should be given. 
But even this is not lightly to be brought against 
them. They may have supposed that it would be easy 
to arrange matters with regard to the other professions, 
in the same manner as had always been done in theo- 
logy ; and that resident graduates would pursue, under 
the direction of the professors, the studies on the rudi- 
ments of which they had entered while in college. 
They certainly ought not to be blamed for not having 
foreseen the changes which have taken place in the 
circumstances of the country so fast that we, who have 
seen them, can hardly believe them. It is no matter 
of reproach to them that they did not anticipate the 
time when many, besides graduates of colleges, would 
pursue professional studies, and, notwithstanding the 
deficiency of their early education, would make them- 
selves respectable and respected in their professional 
career throughout the country. Nor should it be a 
matter of reproach to those governors of the college 
who, in a later day, were enabled, by the assistance 
and countenance of its best and wisest friends, to 
detach, in some degree, those professorships which were 
not useful to under-graduates, but which were more 
particularly adapted to professional education, and thus 
to leave the course of studies which truly belong to an 
academic department, freed from the embarrassment 
of inappropriate labor, and in possession of the entire 
period of four years, short enough at the best, to be 
devoted to its proper pursuit. , 1^- 

At successive periods, by the strenuous exertions, y<^^ f 

not merely of the Corporation, but of bountiful bene- 
factors, of professors and lecturers in the college, and 



28 

in short of all its friends, this separation into schools 
and departments has been effected; — and the addi- 
tional professorships founded in each by alnmni, or by 
uneducated, but true, friends of education, have put 
the seal of general approbation upon the movement. 
In one case the professors urged upon the Corporation 
the establishment of a medical school, and after long 
and anxious consideration, the thing was done ; and it 
would be fair and modest to presume, even if we did 
not know, that it was done for suf&cient reasons by the 
wise and good men who took part in the transaction ; 
and it has certainly been attended by the most useful 
and successful results, which could have been attained 
in no other way. In another case, a theological 
school was established by those who agreed in opin- 
ion with the governors and professors of the college, 
and it was thought judicious, by all parties, that 
the means of theological instruction at Cambridge, 
comprising the library, two professorships, and one 
lectureship, should be combined with other resources, 
and formed into a school, without withdrawing any 
thing from the elementary instruction of undergradu- 
ates which the professors had heretofore given. If 
such a school were wanted at all, (and who should 
decide this against the judgment of the numerous con- 
tributors, who probably knew the wants of a commu- 
nity of which they formed so considerable a part,) 
would it have been wise in them to pass by, and over- 
look, the advantages actually existing at Cambridge, 
and doing much less good than they might do, merely 
for want of opportunity, and attempt to build up an 
institution elsewhere, and repeat the same necessary 



29 

foundations at new cost, while those at Cambridge 
would be lying unused ? Or would it have been 
reasonable for the Corporation to have refused permis- 
sion to their professors to exercise their talents, and 
communicate their learning, in a new school, under 
their own control, where they could be made far more 
useful than they could possibly be to undergraduates ? 
Certainly not for the reason given by the reviewer, 
that the new institution would absorb their time 
and labor, whatever other grounds may exist, in the 
minds of some persons, for doubt upon the expediency 
of the establishment. 

In a third case a professorship was founded and 
given to the college, by an alumnus not altogether 
undistinguished for ability and judgment, for the 
express purpose of securing the services of one who 
was enough, of himself, to teach a whole school ; a man 
whose renown was coextensive with civilization, and 
the declining of whose services for any such reasons as 
are suggested by the reviewer, would have been the 
signal for such a shout of ridicule from the whole cul- 
tivated and educated world, as no " seven mortal men " 
had ever before excited, or could support for a moment. 
Imagine the Corporation saying to Mr. Dane, " No, 
sir, we cannot accept your donation, nor Judge Story's 
services. Colleges and universities were instituted 
more particularly for the prosecution of those ' liberal 
studies,' as they are termed, of which law forms no 
part. If we maintain a law school at Cambridge, our 
time and labor will be absorbed by it ; it will give us a 
deceptive appearance of wealth ; it will become a for- 
midable rival of that school of the prophets which has 



/^ 



ao 

heretofore monopolized our care and attention, and we 
must beg you to establish your proposed school on an 
independent footing. Harvard College must not be 
expected to furnish all the machinery, all the man- 
agement, all the funds, for the cultivation of every 
science, and for the promotion of every enterprise." It 
may safely be said that, however great have been their 
errors, the Corporation never committed quite so absurd 
a blunder as this would have been. 

The case of the Scientific School is, if that be possi- 
ble, still clearer. There was a general state of effer- 
vescence and impatience in the public mind, upon the 
neglect of science in this country, and particularly in 
this part of it, where the need of it was, perhaps, most 
strongly felt. The reading man in his closet, the mer- 
chant on the exchange, the mariner on the ocean, the 
manufacturer pondering upon new patterns, the artisan 
at work upon unyielding substances, and guided by mys- 
terious mechanical powers, all sympathized with the 
professor in his chair, in the wish that a school might be 
established, where chemistry, physics, engineering, me- 
chanics, and astronomy, might be thoroughly and practi- 
cally taught. By a spontaneous and irresistible impulse 
of the community,* a large sum was raised for the truly 
noble purpose of cultivating astronomical science ; and 
by the unhesitating decision of every one interested 
in the matter, Cambridge was the place for the pur- 
pose, and the Corporation was the body to take charge 

* The reviewer says a considerable sum " was subscribed, after tirgent solicita- 
tion, by the merchant princes of Boston and its vicinity." On the other hand, if an 
experienced solicitor may be allowed to testify, never was less urgency requisite. 
The whole sum asked for was obtained, in two or three weeks, with a facility wUch 
showed the entire preparation of men's minds for the work. 



31 

of the undertaking. No questions were asked about 
it; no other place or management ever occurred to 
anybody ; and it would be difficult now to say where 
the apparatus could be more appropriately bestowed. 
Several of the professors, whose time was not wholly 
engrossed by their collegiate duties, had long been desi- 
rous of seeing a school of science established ; and the 
Corporation, hearing the loud call from every quarter, 
and sensible of its singular adaptation to the wants of 
the time and the country, were willing to undertake 
their share of the enterprise, which was at once of ^^ an ^ 
intellectual, a philanthropic, and an industrial charac- 
ter," and which did not seem to them at all unsuited, 
on that account, to their position, or to the purpose for 
which the college was originally established. The 
moment the project was suggested to the Hon. Abbott 
Lawrence, his judgment approved it, his knowledge of 
the state of the country led him to a perception of its 
almost immeasurable utility, and his generosity of 
spirit rendered its establishment certain. This school, 
at least, may be justly characterized, in the language 
of the reviewer, as one " which challenges the admira- 
tion and support of every well-informed lover of his 
race, every well-wisher to the highest interests of man- 
kind." If he quarrel with it because it is connected 
with the college, and placed under the care of the 
Corporation, he must quarrel with the professors who 
so strongly recommended action in the premises to the 
Corporation, and considered it a duty of the college to 
take the lead in establishing it ; — with that large por- 
tion of the public who procured scientific instruments, 
and required them to be placed at Cambridge ; — with 



i 



32 

the profound scholars and enlightened statesmen, not 
intimately connected with the college, who cooperated 
in its foundation, and rejoiced in its prospects ; — with 
the singularly munificent benefactors, living and dead, 
who have testified to their sense of its importance, and 
the propriety of its position, by giving to the college 
the means of its support. When he has discomfited all 
these allies, it will be time for the Corporation to 
attempt to justify themselves for having undertaken 
the care of an institution " tvMch has as much to do ivith 
the original lour pose for which the college was founded as 
ivith cotton-spinning.^' They are not so coldly insensible 
to the spirit of the age, and of the community in which 
they live, as to reject the offer of the means of intellect- 
ual progress, merely because it is by another path than 
that of " classical learning, old-fashioned scholarship, 
and literary pursuits." Aware of the benefit of even 
the reflected light of science to the institution to which 
they are ardently attached, they could never refuse a 
gift which would add lustre to its name, give a new 
stimulus and new knowledge to its students, and pene- 
trate the whole atmosphere of the college with the 
rising brightness of another dawn. 

It thus appears, from recurring to a few well-known 
facts in the history of the college, that these obnoxious 
institutions have been gathered around it in such a 
manner that the annexation of not one of them could 
have been prevented ; even if the reviewer himself 
could have lifted up his warning voice a century and a 
half ago, and advised the Corporation to beware of 
encumbering themselves with donations for the conver- 
sion of Indians, to hold back from the treacherous gifts 



33 

of Baptists, and lawyers, and doctors, and even from 
those of a growing and improving public. It is no- 
body's fault that they are there ; but it has generally 
been considered heretofore that it was a great merit of 
somebody; and it remains to be seen whether they 
have been productive of the various evils which the 
reviewer has ascribed to them. 

" They absorb the time and energy of the governors 
of the college," he exclaims. If by absorb, he means 
that they take up all the time of the governors which 
is given to the entire establishment, there is no need 
of contradicting such an extravagant assertion. If the 
more moderate accusation is meant that they consume 
the larger part of that time, or even the still more 
plausible charge that an undue proportion of it is 
given to these, to the neglect or injury of any of the 
interests of the college proper, the assertion is equally, 
though not so obviously, groundless. It might be rea- 
sonably conjectured, without positive knowledge, that a 
branch of the institution, which, like the academic depart- 
ment, comprises half the students and instructers, and 
m,ore than half the funds, would share in due propor- 
tion, at least, in the attention of those who are appointed 
to superintend the interests of each. But, in fact, such 
is the nature of that department, the pupils require so 
much more care, the branches of instruction differ from 
each other so much, the arrangements of study, disci- 
pline and accommodation, are so intricate, there is so 
much greater responsibility to parents and friends, 
and the public generally take so much more interest in 
the progress and well-being of those blooming youth 
than of maturer persons, that it would be perfectly safe 



34 

to say that nine-tenths of all the time given to the col- 
lege by the Corporation are ahsorhcd by that depart- 
ment. The other branches of the institution, from the 
riper age of the pupils, and the peculiar character of 
the instruction given to them, are much better able to 
take care of themselves ; the appointments to office in 
them, one great absorbent of the time of the Corpora- 
tion, are far less frequent ; and the feeling of that body 
towards the part of the institution which requires and 
receives so much the largest proportion of their thoughts, 
is necessarily one of stronger interest. If any danger 
were to occur to it, threatening its extinction or serious 
decay, the most strenuous efforts of the Corporation 
would be required by the public, and nothing short of a 
truly absorhing devotion of their time and labor would 
satisfy either themselves or the community. But, with 
regard to the other departments, though their responsi- 
bility may be as immediate, their interest can scarcely 
be so deep as in the original, the primary school. The 
mere fact that the management of the advanced schools 
is necessarily more given up to the faculty of each than 
that of the academic department can be, accounts for 
a different feeling with respect to them ; and no 
reviewer, nor any one else, need apprehend a diminu- 
tion of the intense filial regard which is and must be 
felt for his Alma Mater, by every member of the Corpo- 
ration, whether he passed through one of the profes- 
sional schools or not. The only danger which can arise 
on this point, is from a source to which the reviewer 
does not allude, namely : placing in the Corporation 
those who are not alumni. 

But let us proceed with the list of evils arising from 



35 

the excrescences which have gathered around the col- 
lege. '^ They give it a deceptive appearance of wealth, 
when in truth they only make it poorer." If a man be 
so careless as to look only at the schedule of pro- 
perty, amounting to some $750,000, and suppose that 
all of it belongs to the academic department, one would 
think it hardly fair to consider his dulness the fault of 
the professional schools ; and if he were to mistake 
the sum above-named for wealth, even if it did all 
belong to the academic department, he must be one 
whom it would be more difficult than useful to enlighten. 
But the reviewer has mistaken the cause of the decep- 
tive appearance of wealth in the college. It is not 
because other institutions have been connected with it 
that it is comparatively poor, but because the professor- 
ships which have been established in it, have been built 
upon very insufficient foundations ; and each one has 
required an increased assessment on the students, in 
order to give a salary for which the appropriated funds 
were inadequate. In former times, the legislature used 
to do this, from the resources of the state, but in later 
days the Corporation have been obliged to raise the 
tax on the students, to comply with the conditions of a 
donation. This is indeed giving ''- a deceptive appear- 
ance of wealth," — to receive a donation, appoint a pro- 
fessor, and then tax the students more heavily. If the 
Corporation were to adopt a rule to the effect that they 
would never again appoint a professor till the funds 
provided were sufficient for his support, they would 
take the first step to correct this evil, which has grown 
up entirely within the academic department, and has 
nothing whatever to do with the multiplication of 
exterior schools. 



36 



" They divert the attention and generosity of the 
community, which would otherwise all be turned 
towards the fostering of proper academic studies at 
Harvard." It may not be impertinent to ask how 
the reviewer knows that. It is by no means a self- 
evident proposition. It does not follow that, because 
a man has founded a professorship in one of the 
advanced schools, he would have given his money to 
the college, for some academic purpose, if the profes- 
sional institution had not caught his eye. Nathan 
Dane founded a professorship in the law school, and 
selected the first incumbent. The choice of Judge 
Story was a great part of his motive for doing the 
thing at all ; and there is not the slightest ground for 
belief that he would have given any sum to the col- 
lege, for any purpose but precisely that which he 
selected. The more natural inference, therefore, from 
what has been done for the professional schools, is that 
they have afforded an opportunity to meet the particu- 
lar views and wishes of different individuals; and 
that all which has been bestowed on them is just 
so much gained for the general cause of education 
among us. Look, too, at what has been done for the 
academic department within the last thirty years, 
which the reviewer marks as the period of peculiar 
degeneracy. Is there any evidence that the generosity 
of the community has been diverted? Quite the 
reverse. Amid a large amount of donations to the 
professional schools, the following have been received 
for the older branch of the college. Three professor- 
ships have been founded, the Perkins, the Fisher, and 
the McLean ; the library has been more than doubled, 



37 

and the department of books on America, in wMch it is 
now far richer than any other library in this country, has 
been created ; the collection of minerals has been vastly 
increased ; the hall for the library has been erected ; 
several sums have been given for the personal aid of 
the students, and fifty thousand dollars have been 
given for the education of youth of remarkable talent. 
If this be neglect, what would be encouragement? 
No, it is delightful to witness this spirit of growth on 
every side ; to observe that while new opportunities 
for progress are developed, the earliest and most 
important are not forgotten ; and it gives the very best 
promise of a sure and steady advance to see that the 
chain of communication is kept up by the public, from 
the primary school for the child of three years old, to 
the professional school which sends forth the young- 
man prepared for the labors and struggles of life. 

But the reviewer goes on, "they borrow its 
money," — and if they repay it again with interest, 
what better investment can there be for the college ? 
The uses of that money are " twice blest." It helps 
both those who lend, and those who pay. It enriches 
two fields of instruction at once, and does, at least, 
twice as much good as any other money the college 
possesses. But, of course, there is danger that a pro- 
fessional school, like any other debtor, may not repay 
what it has borrowed ; and it may be useful to inquire 
what is the probability that the money advanced by 
the college will not be restored, in either of the two 
instances, in which only an advance has been made. 
About $14,000 were lent to the medical department, 
two years ago, to complete the erection of the new 



38 

building, for which the professors gave a guarantee 
that the interest should be regularly paid, and a por- 
tion of the principal, small at first, but afterwards to 
be increased, should be returned annually. As every 
one of the professors of that department has signed 
the guarantee, and the Corporation, who advanced the 
money, has the power of nomination of those officers, 
and may make the signing of the bond a condition of 
appointment, it would seem that this investment was 
tolerably safe. 

The only other case * in which college funds have 
been used for aiding any thing but the academical 
department, is that of the observatory, as a part of the 
Scientific School. It was impossible that advances 
should be so well secured here, as in the other 
instance ; but the action of the Corporation has been 
by no means so reckless as the reviewer seems to 
think. No one among us imagined, when the project 
of an observatory was first started, that it would prove 
nearly so expensive as it has done. Sufficient allow- 
ance was not made for the cost of the instruments, by 
several thousand dollars, though a much closer estimate 
might have been made of them than was possible of 
any other part of the establishment. But the cost of 
some of the piers, of the dome, of the observer's chair, 
of the stones of peculiar form required to support the 
instruments upon the piers, and various indispensable 
parts of the nice apparatus of an observatory, could 
not be estimated at all. Whatever could be contracted 
for, viz. : the house, the tower, and the great pier, upon 

* The $1600 to the debit of the Scientific School in the Treasurer's last statement 
are provided for. 



39 

estimates made by competent mechanics, were built 
Avithin such reasonable limits as had been anticipated ; 
and which, though considerably exceeding the amount 
subscribed, were not so extended as to be a sufficient 
objection to proceeding. In the entire absence of all 
experience of the cost of such structures m this part 
of the country, both among scientific men and me- 
chanics, it cannot be matter of surprise, or of blame, 
that such new work should be expensive ; or that if the 
thing were to be done over again, it could be done for 
a smaller sum. The Corporation were not the only 
one of the many parties concerned who were ignorant 
of the expense of an observatory ; but they were the 
only persons who knew what resources they had to 
rely upon, to replace such advances as might be made. 
As these have never been stated, except in the Treas- 
urer's reports, of which few persons take any notice, it 
may be well to repeat what hopes the Corporation 
indulge of being able to repay to the general fund the 
money which is, for a time, taken from it. The expec- 
tation of a profit from the sale of the land, which was 
purchased about ten years ago for the purposes of an 
observatory, has been so far realized that the entire 
cost, with interest, has been obtained from sales already 
made ; and after reserving an ample quantity for the 
institution, there are 123,500 feet, or nearly three 
acres remaining, the proceeds of every foot of which 
should go to diminish the balance against the observa- 
tory account. Any one acquainted with the present 
prices of land in the vicinity of Boston, and with the 
peculiar advantages of that situation, will be aware 



40 



that no inconsiderable sum must be obtained, by care- 
ful management of this large property. 

The present balance against the observatory in- 
cludes the cost of a dwelling-house, without regard 
to the fact that another house, of at least equal value, 
was restored, by the erection of this, to the use of the 
college. Eight thousand dollars may, therefore, be 
equitably deducted from the account, and putting the 
two things together, the formidable balance may be 
reduced to about one-third of its present amount. It 
is not altogether improbable that the remainder may 
be wiped off by a liberality similar to that which 
began the undertaking. Indeed, if the institution be 
so managed as to continue the favorable regard the 
public now feel for it, it may be considered a certainty 
that some generous individual, or individuals, will arise, 
who will relieve the college from any fear of future 
reproach on that account. That it has been in a 
condition to acquire such favor among ourselves, and 
so high a reputation already, elsewhere, is owing to 
the free expenditure which has placed it in working 
order, and has enabled the Messrs. Bond to exert their 
talents and skill in their appropriate and noble work. 
The expenditure, therefore, was not less necessary, as 
a financial measure, than it was to promote the pro- 
gress of science ; and surely some effort is due from 
the college to foster undertakings which " challenge 
the admiration and support of every well-informed 
lover of his race, every well-wisher to the highest 
interests of mankind," when the whole community 
around them is actively interested, and urging them to 
do their part in the project. 



41 

The next topic with the reviewer is that ^^ they mul- 
tiply inordinately its occasions for appealing to public 
munificence." As no especial injury seems likely to 
befall the college, if this be so, it may be safely left to 
the consideration of the judicious. If the reviewer 
imagines that the public would be less wearied by the 
applications of half a dozen various institutions, than 
by those of one, in which they had long been accus- 
tomed to repose confidence, for different objects, he 
has less experience than some of his neighbors, in the 
practice of begging of the public, and must have had 
less opportunity of observing its effects. 

Another objection of the reviewer is that "they [the 
other institutions] become formidable rivals to those 
exclusively intellectual pursuits, to that love of letters 
and sound scholarship, to that general and liberal cul- 
ture, which should be the peculiar aim of a life at col- 
lege." The rivalry spoken of may be very likely to 
exist, but it is not precisely in the place, nor in the 
manner, implied by the reviewer. The professional 
and scientific schools neither are, nor can they ever 
become, rivals of the academic department, in any 
direct way. They are for entirely different purposes, 
and pursue their objects in methods each different 
from the other, and from that of the college. They 
are for different classes of students, of very diverse 
ages and character ; and they have instructors who, 
from the inherent incongruity in their subjects of 
teaching, can never interfere with those of the college. 
Where then is the rivalry? It may be that a law 
school, or a scientific school, may rival the college in 
the estimate of the public of the relative importance of 

6 



42 

the studies pursued, or of tlie merits and rank of those 
who have been educated in them. And a rivalry of 
this sort, if it arise, will do no manner of harm, but, on 
the contrary, much good to each institution, to its 
students, and its professors. Those who feel a particu- 
lar interest in either of these elevated and necessary 
means of education, will have an opportunity of con- 
tributing to it according to their means ; and there is 
no fear that either will languish, comparatively, in this 
community ; while the different opinions entertained of 
the relative importance of each, will tend to correct the 
over-estimate which every man is apt to make of his 
own pursuit. None will be tempted to say to the 
other, "I have no need of thee," nor will any man 
again compare an institution for any branch of educa- 
tion, with one for cotton-spinning. 

Finally the reviewer says these institutions, " though 
often seemingly successful at the outset, subsequently 
become in many cases a dead weight and an encum- 
brance, injuring the good name of the college, and 
lessening its means of usefulness." 

One would think from the terms " often " and " in 
many cases," that there might be some scores of insti- 
tutions, thus dragging the college down to ignominy 
and disaster. In fact, there are just four schools which 
are under the management of the Corporation, beside 
what is called now the academic department, and which, 
for substance, was the original college ) and these four 
schools have otherwise no more to do with each other, 
or the college, than if they were in different counties, 
and cannot, therefore, injure its good uame, or lessen 
its usefulness. Two of them are remarkably successful, 



43 

and reflect honor upon the college and upon all con- 
nected with them, by their well-earned reputation ; the 
third succeeds as well as the limited demand for its 
instruction probably permits, and has certainly not been 
wanting in reputation for the ability and learning 
of its professors; while the fourth has just begun to 
exist, and nothing ought to be said of it, but that it 
starts under the most favorable auspices imaginable, 
and does not threaten, as yet, to be "a dead weight," 
upon either the reputation or the funds of the college. 

A fifth school, that for Agriculture, founded by the 
late Mr. Bussey, is, at a future day, to be under the 
same management; and as this is to be in another 
county, and will give no trouble to any one but the Cor- 
poration, it seems unnecessary to prophecy evil of the 
institution, merely because, a generation or two hence, 
it is to be under the general control of that body. Let 
us at least hope that the Corporation of the day will find 
some means of making it useful to the public, and not 
injurious to the college. 

The reviewer remarks, — ^^How much of the time, 
care and effort, which the President and the Corpora- 
tion would otherwise have given to the undergraduate 
department, have been absorbed during the last ten 
years by the Observatory, we have no means of esti- 
mating. They are but seven mortal men, after all ; 
most of them are deeply engaged in very laborious 
professions, and it is to be presumed that they find the 
management of the college no sinecure." Of course it 
is no sinecure ; but neither is it any such burden that 
men of active minds and willing hearts, cannot find 
opportunity to attend faithfully and sufficiently to all 



44 

its duties, without sacrificing the interests of one 
department to those of another; and the insinuation 
that such may be the case, however cautiously expressed, 
is quite unworthy of the journal in which it appears, and 
of the character of the gentlemen referred to. 

The amount of the burden upon the five Fellows, as 
they are called in the charter of the college, may be, 
in some degree, estimated by the number of meetings 
held in a year, which, for the five years from 1843 to 
1847 inclusive, has averaged twenty-four and one-fifth. 
It is not often that the business before the Corporation 
requires the attention or time of the Fellows in the 
intervals between the meetings, and the amount re- 
quired of them is therefore from four to five hours a 
month. The President and the Treasurer must give 
more ; the former, of course, devotes almost his whole 
time, and the Treasurer must appropriate a considerable 
proportion both of time and thought, to the concerns of 
the college. But they are both salaried officers ; at 
least, one has been so till within about twenty years, 
and must probably again receive a compensation here- 
after, and the • other has always been so ; and there 
is no reason why they should not, on the contrary, it is 
quite necessary that they should give as much time 
and thought as possible to so valuable an institution. 

The increase in the labors of the board by the estab- 
lishment of the distinct schools, may be judged of, with 
some degree of fairness, by the increase in the fre- 
quency of their meetings. Thirty years ago, when 
there was no professional school connected with the 
college, but the Medical, and that was only beginning 
to be important, the average number of meetings in 



45 



five years was twenty-two ; showing an increase of just 
one-tenth in the amount of business caused by the 
annexation of the Theological, Law, and Scientific 
Schools, and the great enlargement of the Medical de- 
partment. It is to be hoped that " seven mortal men " 
may long continue to be found, who will be able and 
willing conscientiously and fully to attend to the wants 
and interests of all the departments, in the general way 
that the Corporation are called upon to provide for them. 
With a passing compliment to the founder of a 
whole department of the Scientific School, the reviewer 
has yet nothing but fault to find with it. He acknow- 
ledges ^^it is an experiment, its objects and arrange- 
ments making it really the first of its kind in the 
world," yet he says it borrows its professors from other 
departments, makes the senior class pay for lectures 
they formerly attended gratis, and has not yet fur- 
nished the only professor whose department is new 
at the college, that of engineering. He comes to the 
reluctant conclusion, in view of these facts, " that 
the Scientific School as yet is a tremendous burden 
upon the college, and yields to it no advantage or 
profit whatsoever." Upon what part of the college can 
it be a burden ? As yet^ clearly upon the Corporation 
only ; and if they are willing to submit to it, and have 
even interested themselves to procure its establishment, 
this is a very superfluous lamentation over their trouble. 
As for the borrowing of the professors of the academic 
department, it will be time enough to complain of that, 
when the undergraduates are defrauded of the due pro- 
portion of attention from them. The lectures of the 
Rumford Professor, formerly delivered to the senior 



46 

clasS; were not of importance enough to require serious 
mention in such a connection. Those lectures, honor- 
able to the professors, as they were, and valuable in 
other spheres, as they would have been, were not par- 
ticularly adapted to the improvement of undergradu- 
ates ; and the senior class has, in fact, suffered no loss, 
by the transfer of the professor to the Scientific School. 
In another part of the article there is a complaint 
somewhat inconsistent with this ; and if it were just, the 
reviewer himself would be compelled to acknowledge 
that the removal of the Rumford scientific course to an- 
other department was not only on the whole advisable, 
but a positive and great gain. " So many of the natu- 
ral sciences have been crowded and jammed into the 
course of instruction, that the students are wearied and 
distracted by the number of the heterogeneous tasks 
imposed upon them, and learn nothing thoroughly. 
The old-fashioned studies have not been given up alto- 
gether ; but they have been pushed into a corner, and 
the student has his option with regard to many ( 1 ) of 
them during a large part of his college course, whether 
he will pursue them or not. The professors undertake 
to instruct in omni scihile (? i) ; the students get a 
smattering of every thing and a knowledge of nothing." 
Alas, poor students ! What a miserable place of educa- 
tion is Harvard College ! The governors have estab- 
lished so many schools, that your faculties are confused 
by being obliged to attend upon them all in your four 
short years, and at the same time you are cheated of 
your rights, by having your professors, those who were 
appointed to instruct you, borrowed by the Scientific 
School. The reviewer seems to imagine all this to be 



47 

tlie case, as it is difficult to account for those sentences 
upon any other idea. But the truth is, the subjects of 
study in the academic department remain the same as 
they were thirty years ago, except that a little more 
time is given to Botany, Physiology, and Modern 
Languages, and some attention is paid in the senior 
year, which, thirty years ago, was not sufficiently occu- 
pied, to Political Economy and the Constitution of 
the United States. Are these moderate additions 
sufficient to thrust the proper academic studies into 
a corner, and subject the professors to the charge of 
attempting to teach every thing, and the students to 
the obloquy of learning nothing ? So far is this from 
being true, that it is known to every friend of the col- 
lege, that partly in consequence of the increased requi- 
sitions for admission, and partly in consequence of the 
greater vigor with which the studies are pursued, a 
better knowledge of Greek, Latin, and Mathematics, is 
obtained in the first two years than was acquired, thirty 
years ago, in the whole four ; and after this is done, 
the students are allowed to pursue them still farther, if 
they choose to do so. If students were permitted to 
determine for themselves whether they would attend at 
all to Latin, Greek, and Mathematics, or not, there 
might be some ground of complaint on the subject ; 
but really, when they obtain what has heretofore been 
considered a sufficient acquaintance with such things, 
earlier and more thoroughly than formerly, it seems 
hard that both officers and students should be exposed 
to such extremely reproachful language from a profess- 
ed friend. Every well-informed friend of the college 
knows that the attainments of the undergraduates, in 



48 

all appropriate academic studies, are far higher and 
more thorough now than they were thirty years ago, 
though they were not contemptible then, — that the 
officers of instruction were never more competent, 
faithful and zealous, and never more deserving of a 
word of encouragement, rather than of rebuke. 

The reviewer shows a certain indistinctness of per- 
ception, or is guilty of carelessness in the use of lan- 
guage, in another sentence in this connection. ^^A 
young man with no previous training but a common 
English education, may now enter the college, as a '^ spe- 
cial student in chemistry." Indeed he can do no such 
thing. He may enter the scientific school ; but that is 
a very different thing from entering the college, and 
there is no danger of their being confounded together 
by most people. The distinction is generally pretty 
clearly perceived. ^^ The question is," adds the reviewer, 
" whether a college or university is just the place where 
facilities ought to be offered for its attainment." A col- 
lege, for the preparatory education of the young, is 
clearly not a proper place for the thorough study of 
chemistry ; and therefore the governors of the college 
have been anxious to provide a separate school, where, 
in compliance with the public demand, proper facilities 
for it might be afforded. That a university is not 
elsewhere deemed an inappropriate place for such 
instruction, is evinced by the fact that the London 
University provides for exactly such a department. 

The reviewer has made two statements among others, 
in figures, which, though not so important as the sub- 
jects already discussed, yet require correction ; both 
because many persons will catch up charges against 



49 

the college, in the department of finance, who will care 
nothing about the rest, and because the reviewer 
himself requires and expects accuracy even in esti- 
mates, and points out the difference between the esti- 
mate of the cost of Gore Hall, and its ultimate cost. 
He says that in consequence of " its size and grandiose 
construction, ^750 have to be annually expended for 
the fuel that it requires." It so happens that in the 
last annual statement of the Treasurer, such a sum as 
that, namely, $752*72 is charged to the Library for 
fuel. If he had taken the trouble to look back for a 
few years, however, he would have found it much less ; 
and the average of the last four years, certainly a nearer 
approach to the true annual charge, than that of a single 
year, is ^397"13, or not much more than half of the 
sum he stated. Would it be just to say of the review- 
er's statements, as he says in relation to the college 
estimates of Grore Hall, ex uno disce omnia ? Again, in 
speaking of the expenses of the college, he says that in 
1835, the " general expenses," not including salaries, 
were but $4,843 ; last year they amounted to $7,374. 
The sum of $4,843-34 is the amount called expenses 
by the Treasurer of that year, but on the next page of 
the account (page 12) are five items, all of which 
would now be included in the expense account, and 
would make it nearly six hundred dollars more, and 
another on page 8, which would add four hundred and 
seventy dollars more. But it is not by the expenditure 
of a single year that such items can be properly under- 
stood. If the average of the expense account of the 
years 1830-1-2 be compared with the average of 
1845-6- 7, it wiU be found that the difference is but 



50 

about one-half of that which seems to exist between 
1835 and 1847. Again, the reviewer has nearly 
doubled the amount which he should have stated. Just 
inferences cannot be drawn from exaggerated premises. 
The expense account has not always been made up in 
the same manner, but the two accounts of repairs and 
expenses now include the same items that were charged 
upon both in 1835 ; and the sum of them in that year 
was $10,657-39, and in 1848, $10,797-36. The average 
of the two accounts for 1830-1-2, was $10,687-69, 
and for the years 1846-7-8, it was $11,427-80, 
showing an increase of 1 740-11, which will hardly be 
considered as a very extravagant increase in sixteen 
years. 

The reviewer mentions the circumstance that the 
number of students has not increased in the last thkty 
years, as one of those facts " significant and unwelcome 

to the friends of the college; but none the less facts'' 

Now, of what is this fact significant ? One almost 
inevitably infers, notwithstanding his acknowledgment 
that ^' these facts may all be accounted for without 
imputing blame to any one," from the very sig7iijicant 
way in which he enumerates them, that in his judg- 
ment they are not only facts, but faults ; and that if the 
college had been rightl}^ managed, they would not have 
existed. But of what is this particular fact, that the 
number of undergraduates has not increased, signifi- 
cant ? The reviewer himself tells us, a page or two 
farther on, that " the sole reason why they [the halls of 
the college] are not thus crowded is the great expense 
of living as a student at Cambridge. For vastly the 
larger number of the youth of Massachusetts, the effect 



51 

of this high cost is just the same as if the institution 
were a thousand miles off. There the college is, — 
an admirable institution, and an education within 
its walls is very desirable ; but they are not able to 
take so long a journey." Is it possible ? Can this last 
sentence have been written by the same pen which 
traced the declaration before quoted, that ^^ the stu- 
dents are wearied and distracted by the number of 
the heterogeneous tasks imposed upon them, and learn 
nothing thoroughly. The old-fashioned studies have 
not been given up altogether, but they have been 

pushed into a corner The 

professors undertake to instruct in omni scibile ; the 
students get a smattering of every thing and a know- 
ledge of nothing?" It wiU reqiiire all the ingenuity 
of the reviewer to show these assertions to be consist- 
ent with each other; and it may be fairly asked, to 
which he will adhere. It has been the object of this 
letter to show on which side is the truth — to show 
that the students have not been so ill-treated and 
unsuccessful, that the faculty have not been so 
unwise, that the governors of the college, the Corpo- 
ration and Overseers, have not so mismanaged the 
institution through long years, and many generations, 
as the reviewer represents ; that he is entirely mistaken 
in some of the assertions which he considers assertions 
of facts, and that he brings forward other statements 
very much in the form and semblance of charges and 
accusations, at least, if he do not mean them for such, 
when in truth, the things of which he complains are 
among the deeds and events most honorable to the col- 
lege in every way ; to the forecast and liberality of its 



52 

patrons, the assiduity and unsparing efforts of its 
instructors, and the care of its supervisors to adapt it, 
as far as possible, to the wants of their time. He has 
undoubtedly told the truth, and the whole truth neces- 
sary to explain the fact, in the assertion that the 
sole reason why Harvard College is not more frequent- 
ed, is the great expense of living there as a student. 
If he had contented himself with showing this, and 
with advocating the plan for a remedy of the evil 
which he has ably discussed in the last pages of his 
article, the college would have had substantial reason 
to be grateful to him for his valuable aid. But he has 
set in array a series of statements, which, as he himself 
says, " give a rude shock to our feeling of affectionate 
admiration for our Alma Mater; " and he has done it 
without any prospect of being useful \ for if they be 
faults or errors, they are irremediable ; and as they are 
not likely to be repeated, — as there are probably no 
more " other institutions " to be connected with Harvard 
College, they can serve no purpose as a warning to 
anybody. He has made assertions which are injuri- 
ous, and which have now been shown to be unfounded, 
especially those with respect to the faculty and the 
students ; and though these are inconsistent with other 
assertions in the same article, yet there can be little 
doubt that they will leave theb sting behind, and that 
ancient prejudices will be stimulated and embittered 
by them, and new ones created where none existed 
before. 

You, Mr. President, know whether you have been 
associated, for many years, with indiscreet Professors, 
and unimproving pupils, or not; and I trust your 



53 

future association with the Corporation and Overseers 
will enable you to see that they have not, either by 
design, by carelessness, or by incapacity, smothered 
Harvard College "under a heap of other institutions, 
which have as much to do with the original purpose 
for which it was founded as with cotton-spinning." 
You will be in a position, yourself, to do much, in case 
of danger, to prevent the college hereafter from " suffer- 
ing the fate of the Roman maiden, Tarpeia, and being 
crushed by the weight of the ornaments of brass, simu- 
lating gold, which are heaped upon it." And it is the 
ardent hope of every friend of Harvard that you may 
enter on your new career of duty with the cheerful ex- 
pectation of being useful to a rising institution, and not 
discouraged by the lamentation that "it is actually 
poorer, weaker, and less efficient than it was many years 
ago." If I have contributed any thing to strengthen your 
faith, and that of other friends of the college, in its sta- 
bility and progress, to increase the love of the alumni 
for the good it has effected in times past, and the yet 
greater good which may be hoped for in time to come, 
I shall have effected my purpose, and shall be ready 
to go on, with new zeal, in the performance of the 
responsible duty in which I shall be associated with 
you, as 

One of the Corporation 

OF Harvard College. 



i 



iS^::^:^Jxii 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



029 892 556 4 



